


Ashes to ashes, dust to drift

by thegoddessinzerogravity



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-09-30 17:35:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10168205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoddessinzerogravity/pseuds/thegoddessinzerogravity
Summary: After the jaeger program had kicked off, it had been quickly discovered that birds made the best pilots.Stacker Pentecost and his lioness daemon were the exception.





	

i. Chiyoko had been nothing but wild since Stacker and Abna found Mako, and the worry was starting to gnaw at his heart.

_Victims of intense trauma at a young age often stay stuck on typically wild and ferocious forms as a coping mechanism, to deal with the stress and anxiety brought on by their suffering. If given proper support and treatment, this can be rectified and the child and their daemon can begin to recover._

He'd read the pamphlet that he'd found in the lobby him over and over, fixating on that passage. What was the use in taking her in, rescuing her, caring for her if she ended up hurting and terrified for the rest of her life, her daemon taking on wilder and wilder shapes until something snapped? 

He looked over at where Mako and her daemon were playing in the waiting room. Chiyoko was a caracal, with tufted ears and paws almost the size of Mako's head. A door opened and shut behind him, and the psychologist in charge of Mako's case walked out. She nodded at him in greeting, and her rattlesnake daemon flicked his tail at Abna. She spotted the paper in his hands, glanced over at the child in question, and actually smiled. 

"I don't think you need to worry about that, Mr. Pentecost." He gave her a disbelieving look, and smoothed the pamphlet to read it out loud. "Victims of intense trauma at a young age-" 

"I know what that says, Mr. Pentecost. Have you noticed a trend in the forms Chiyoko has been taking, other than their wildness?" 

Abna guessed first. She rose to her feet, and addressed the woman directly. "They're all feline." 

She shifted slightly on her feet, unsure the proper etiquette for speaking to someone else's daemon. She settled for meeting Stacker's eyes again as she spoke. "Every one of the forms Mako's daemon has taken since she's been here have been cats of some form." She smiled again. "I think you two have made a strong impression." 

Stacker glanced down at the lioness standing at his feet, and she bumped her nose against his knee in a rare show of public affection. Abna's tail swished against the ground and fixed her eyes on where Mako and Chiyoko were playing. He seemed to have grown tired of their tumbling and was lying still against the floor, Mako gently rubbing his stomach.

Mako glanced up, and a delighted smile grew across her face when she spotted Stacker. She instantly rolled to her feet and Stacker held out one arm for her to grab onto.

Mako scooted towards him, Chiyoko padding behind her as she did. She grabbed ahold of his jacket sleeve and Chiyoko curled on the floor against her ankles.

"May we go back to your house?" Her English had improved magnificently in the short time since he'd met her, and he felt a surge of pride while she looked at him questioningly, still gripping his arm. "Chiyoko is very sleepy."

_Children's daemons tend to copy the forms of people they greatly respect and admire, usually parents or other adults who have large significance in their life._

Stacker rested one hand on her head. "We can now, Miss Mori. Are you sleepy too?" 

She nodded, and he impulsively bent down to pick her up and settle her on his hip. Abna lowered her massive head and picked up Chiyoko by the scruff of his neck, following Stacker out of the room. They were probably too old to be held and coddled like this, he reflected. Mako yawned and rested her head against his chest, and adjusted her head so she could watch Abna carefully carrying her daemon in her mouth.

But that didn't matter right now.

(Chiyoko settled on their 12th birthday exactly, as a black-winged kite. _Pilots are almost always birds_ said Abna's voice in his head. He ignored her and focused on Mako happily watching Chiyoko fly around the room. A bird, just as he'd . . . dreaded? hoped? feared? prayed?). 

ii. 

Yancy had always teased him about his slowness to settle, and he'd shot back every time that Lama was _taking her goddamn time, Yancy, not everyone settles when they're ten._ His brother never held any malice behind his ribbing, but as Raleigh got older and Lama still didn't settle, insecurity started to pound away at him, more and more. 

And then the kaiju came, and his daemon finally knew who they were. "Peregrine falcon," he explained to Yancy, stroking a finger down her wings, still slightly in awe. Yancy clapped him on the back, and Ero cawed appreciatively. "Sticking in the family. Good job." 

Ero and Yancy died with Lama's talons still sunk deep into her sister's back in a desperate, doomed attempt to keep her on the ship, and Dust exploded over her, coating her wings and beak in gold. Lama fell limply against the hard floor of the Gipsy Danger, blood, feathers, and Dust covering her, and their jaeger fell out of the sky with an Earth-shattering crash. 

She didn't fly anymore, after Alaska. She kept her wings tucked against her body, even after Raleigh had cleaned the blood and Dust out of every single feather. She resolutely clung to his shoulder or elbow with her talons, refusing to take any part of the sky again. 

He knew that people whispered about him, the ex-jaeger pilot with a falcon daemon who couldn't fly. He steadfastly ignored them. None of their opinions mattered anyone. The only person on Earth whose opinions on Raleigh and Lama mattered was gone. 

On the Wall, the routine was the same: Wake up, tuck Lama in his jacket, go up the scaffolding, and let the cold, gray skies and the chill of the metal beneath him take him away. Lama would sometimes hop out of his jacket and walk back and forth along the railings, gripping it tightly with her talons. Raleigh always wondered if she missed the sky, missed the incredible power thrusting her _up_ , the world opening up underneath her wings. 

He'd voiced the question out loud to her only once, on a rainy and miserable afternoon on the Wall. She scoffed at him. "Really? I don't miss the sky, Raleigh. I think you do." 

"You're the one with wings!" 

"Everything that one of us does is based in something the other is also doing or thinking. I can't fly anymore, even though I've got two wings in perfect working order-" She paused wistfully and extended them on either side of her, a look of longing on her small face as she stared the blue and white patterned feathers. Lama slotted them back against her sides and continued "because of you, Raleigh. This mental block is both of ours." 

He laid his head against the metal beam and thought about that, listening to the clicking sound of his daemon's nails as she moved along the scaffolding. Yancy had died with his mind still drifting with his brother, and Ero's Dust had covered every inch of Lama when they died. That was the last time either of them had flown. In a jaeger or otherwise. 

Raleigh turned his head to watch Lama, perched on top of the railing they were resting on. She cut a sharp black figure against the gray sky, one motionless falcon and her human. Not flying. But breathing. 

(Lama flew again after their first meeting with Mako Mori. She hesitantly stretched her wings out, balanced on Raleigh's shoulder, and took off into the air. Their tiny bunk was hardly the ideal place for regaining flight after five years, but the light rush in his chest while she clumsily soared from bed to desktop to floor made him feel invincible again.)

iii.

Pilots always wanted to hold their daemons close to them in a jaeger, not willing to risk having their souls torn from them by a creature of nightmares and die separated from them. There were horror stories told about pilots who had their daemons torn off of the jaeger by a kaiju, and had been alive for agonizing minutes before they died. 

Chiyoko was easily small enough to cradle close to Mako's body if she so desired, but she knew the rules. All jaegers were equipped with clasps for the pilot's daemons to ensure their stability during battle, and were easily adjustable to size and species. (Not that that had been much of an issue- it had been quickly discovered that birds made the best pilots.

Stacker Pentecost and his lioness daemon were the exception).

Two pilots with bird daemons working together- both of them birds of prey, at that- should have made for the perfect drift. _Should_ have. Mako gently stroked Chiyoko's beak with one hand, and looked at Raleigh Becket out of the corner of her eye. 

He seemed completely unbothered by their catastrophic drift, apparently content watching Lama flutter around the platform. She chewed her lip thoughtfully for a second, and then Chiyoko sprang off of her hands and swooped after Lama, banking right just before he slammed into her. 

Raleigh's daemon seemed to recognize the game immediately, and made a sharp turn in midair to chase him back. Chiyoko landed on the narrow safety railing, forcing the much larger Lama to do an undignified scramble for purchase. 

Mako burst out laughing and quickly covered her mouth with her hands, wondering if Raleigh would disapprove of the vaguely childish activity. But he was grinning just as much as she was, cupping a hand around his mouth to call out to Lama "He's half your size! Are you even trying?" 

Lama squawked as she whipped around to make another lunge at Chiyoko, who shot away from the railing and crashed back into the safety of Mako's shoulder. Another laugh bubbled out of her as she leaned back to avoid Lama soaring back to Raleigh's knee. "Coward" he informed his daemon, still chuckling at their behavior.

Mako closed her eyes and reflected back to her and Raleigh's sparring session. There had been an undeniable connection, something curling and uncurling within her mind. Chiyoko had been affected too, now that she thought about it. 

"Something was different about Chiyoko in training today" she informed the man in question, and her daemon poked his head out from her hair at the mention of his name. 

"How d'you mean?"

"Normally, when kites fly, they flap their wings as fast as possible in order to move very quickly, because they are smaller than most hunting birds. But today, Chiyoko was holding his wings steady and taking long dives, instead of quick flaps."

She opened her eyes to meet his. "Like how falcons fly."

Lama fluttered down from his knee and hopped into the space between Mako and Raleigh, and Chiyoko followed her example. "Lama was flying differently too. Moving her wings a lot more, even though she doesn't usually need too." 

Copying species-specific behaviors was one of the biggest signs of drift compatibility. Lama shifted one of her wings and covered Chiyoko with it, and Mako imagined she could feel the feathers brushing against her side.

**Author's Note:**

>  _chiyoko_ \- japanese in origin, translating to "child of a thousand generations".
> 
>  _abna_ \- feminized form of "abner", meaning "father of light".
> 
>  _lama_ \- french in origin, translating to "of the sea".
> 
> so . . . the idea of a pacific rim daemon au wouldn't get out of my head. i might do another story like this, going more into detail on how dust and daemons actually interact with each other in the drift. 
> 
> i'm so excited for pacific rim: uprising haha 
> 
> drop me a comment! feedback always appreciated
> 
> <3


End file.
